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Mexican America

History

Mexican America

The ancestors of Mexican Americans are many—railroad workers from Jalisco, Afro-Mexican founders of Los Angeles, Hispanos from Northern New Mexico, part-German Tejanos, indigenous Californians, and Spanish settlers from the Canary Islands, to name just a few. The objects displayed here tell stories about the people whose lives were shaped by their encounters and experiences within Mexican America. Their stories show the western face of the American experience of race, economics, religion, and government. They illustrate a struggle over history, nation, and the notion of "us."

Pre-Hispanic FoundationsOver time and space, the land that today is called Mexico has been many nations, great and small. Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Zuni, Yaqui—their names, like their languages, are many, and their cultural achievements and sensibilities diverse. From California to Guatemala, Mexico is a place of cultural and technological intersections. The ideas, designs, agriculture, and languages of its distinct indigenous peoples did not disappear with the imposition of new boundaries, religions, and institutions, either by Spain, the United States, or modern Mexico’s central government. The objects on view below, like the Aztec hoe money, the print of Hernán Cortés, and Mexican codices, tell their stories. The religious beliefs, political vision, language, and art of Mexican Americans, as well as their histories of discrimination and struggle, are rooted in diverse and mixed indigenous identities. The objects grouped together here, many of which were produced by people north of today’s U.S.-Mexico border and centuries after the Spanish colonial period, reflect the continuity and adaptation of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic foundations.

Christianization, Conquest, and CoexistenceThree factors were decisive in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Without warriors from neighboring Tlaxcala and other anti-Aztec allies, and the aid of an indigenous interpreter known as La Malinche, Hernán Cortés and his small Spanish army could not have laid siege to and destroyed the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, in 1521. The city was not prepared to resist the siege following a smallpox epidemic the year before. A disease introduced to the Americas by Europeans and Africans, it had decimated the population of the Aztec heartland in the previous year, and was spreading throughout Mesoamerica. The Spanish colonial social order imposed Catholicism and feudal partitions of lands. Where they did not encounter resistance, the Spanish would insert themselves at the top of pre-existing social hierarchies. Often, pre-Hispanic forms of labor organization, trade, and government were left intact or modified to suit colonial economic interests. But this process of Christianization, conquest, and even coexistence in the lands to the north and south of the Central Valley of Mexico, was centuries in the making.

American history in the broadest sense was created during these often violent encounters between Europeans, Native Americans, Africans, and their mixed descendants. Specifically, the history of the United States does not begin only in Jamestown or Plymouth but also in the Pueblo Nations and the Spanish and Mexican settlement of Texas, the Southwest, and California. The bilingual Spanish-Náhautl catechism, the hide painting, and the doll of La Llorona are just a few of the objects on view below that illustrate the dramatic cultural encounters that unfolded in what is today Mexico and the American West.

Mexico and the American West in the 19th CenturyEmblems of the American West like cowboys, rodeos, ranches, and missions (remember the Alamo?), have their origins in the histories of exchange and conflict between the Spanish, Mexican, and indigenous communities who lived in the territory between California and Texas. This centuries-long process reassembled their traditions and made a particular impact on land management.

In the early 1800s, American settlers were moving westward into Mexican territory. Mexico, the crown jewel among Spain’s colonies, and the staging post for its trade with Asia, became a sovereign nation in 1821 and controlled the greater western portion of what is today the United States. The American settlers encountered and then took-over the local social hierarchies that determined access to resources like land, water, trade, and labor. In addition to the Tejanos (who numbered about 5,000 at the time of Texan Independence), about 80,000 Mexican citizens were absorbed by the United States as a consequence of U.S. territorial gains in the Mexican-American War in 1848.

While the stories of this first generation of Mexican Americans are extremely diverse, dispossession from land is a recurrent theme. At the end of the century, new populations of Mexicans crossed the border, many seeking work on the railroads newly connecting the two countries. Replacing their Chinese and Japanese predecessors, Mexicans laborers, and their Mexican-American descendents, became the prescribed economic solution to the labor shortage in the booming economies of the new American West. For perspectives on the 19th century, take special note of the objects on view below like the 1879 Almanac, the spur, and the prints titled "Mexican Guerrilleros" and "The Storming of Chapultepec."

Mexican-Americans in the 20th centuryThe movements to reclaim the citizenship, land, labor, and educational rights of old and new generations of Mexican-Americans began in the small farming towns of South Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and in industrial cities like El Paso, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The principles and symbols of Mexican American mobilization and social activism are rooted in both ancient and modern history. The images and language of the Mexican Revolution (1910 1920) and the African American civil rights movement cross-pollinated with Aztec migration stories, the legacy of Spanish colonization, and the experiences of WWII veterans. By the close of the 20th century, the ideas articulated by Mexican American social movements had crossed over into common understandings of race, immigration, national borders, and bilingualism.

Similar notions of ethnicity and culture would also shift for Mexican Americans who were increasingly grouped with other people of mixed Hispanic descent such as Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Central Americans, to become Latino—the nation’s largest ethnic minority. Many of the objects displayed here portray the struggles, aspirations, and sensibilities of Mexican American men and women in the 20th century. Take special note of the objects on view below—the Cesar Chavez poster, the short-handled hoe, the print titled "Work and Rest", and the paños titled "Valor" and "La Tierra Nueva en Aztlán."

Cultural ExpressionsThe cultural expressions of Mexican Americans and their ancestors are as diverse as the regions and times that have shaped their histories. The popular arts produced within Mexican America, from saddles to santos and the theater of protest, all emerge from the rich but contested exchange of cultures between European and Native peoples, Catholic and Protestant, old immigrant and new. Traditions like the Hispanic art of New Mexico go back to the earliest days of the colonization of the upper valleys of the Rio Grande.

Other emblems of Mexican American culture are much younger, gaining currency in the increasingly urban youth culture of the World War II era. This generation of Mexican Americans was pivotal in the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. Its songs, attitudes, and organizing strategies laid the spiritual and political foundation for the dissident Chicano movement that materialized in the late 1960s. It was a period in which Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales’s epic poem "Yo Soy Joaquín" was made into an experimental film, Carlos Santana fused his psychedelic blues guitar with Afro-Cuban percussion, and Cesar Estrada Chavez and Dolores Huerta led Filipino and Mexican American farm workers on a five-year strike. The objects on view below demonstrate the range of cultural expressions within Mexican America—a Spanish Colonial Revival chair, Selena’s leather outfit, and images titled "Orale ese Vato" and "Mexican Boy."

Mariachis, groups comprised of vocalists, trumpeters, violinists, and various bass and guitar players, are today considered Mexico's traditional musical ensemble. Originally from the state of Jalisco, mariachi music transformed itself from a regional to a national music between the 1930s and 1950s. Its accompanying attire is the fancy charro costume for men and the china poblana dress (like the one pictured here) for women. The thriving song, music, and dance culture surrounding mariachi today is the product of pioneering work by Mexican American educators and performers in the early 1960s. Mariachi instruction programs have since grown in popularity across Mexican American communities, with student mariachi ensembles beginning to perform as early as elementary or middle school. But Mexican American musical traditions began much earlier than the mariachi movement—they include styles as diverse as the choir music of the California missions and the corridos and ballads of San Antonio's Rosita Fernández (1925 1997). This china poblana dress, made in the 1960s, belonged to Fernández who, though performing a wide repertoire of Mexican song styles, is most identified with música norteña, rather than mariachi. Her sixty-year career as a local radio, TV, and theater star garnered her the title, "San Antonio's First Lady of Song."

Titled Un Calendario Curioso para 1879, this almanac was printed in Mexico at the beginning of the Porfiriato—the period between 1876 and 1911 dominated by the presidency of Porfirio Díaz. This was a period of intense foreign investment in Mexico. U.S. corporations were especially active in Mexico's mining industry, which was now connected to the United States by an ever-expanding web of railroads. While many fortunes were made during this era of peace and economic growth, the boom did not trickle down to the rural poor or the urban working classes. Many small farmers and indigenous communities lost their fields to powerful landlords and plantation owners. The middle and upper classes also grew disgruntled as the political elite stifled the country's democracy in the name of progress. This almanac offers a window into the everyday lives of Mexicans living in the late 1800s. In addition to a year-long forecast, it includes a timeline of world and Mexican history, highlighting dates such Noah's flood and the execution of Emperor Maximilian. A section at the end offers an elaborate list of recipes selected by "people of good taste" for "people of all classes."

The Spaniards who invaded Mexico brought to North America a well-developed equestrian tradition. Over the centuries, horses, saddles, and other riding paraphernalia were altered by the landscape and the lifestyles of both Spanish and indigenous riders. Accompanied by mariachi music, la charrería is the elaborate and spectacle-driven tradition of horsemanship in Mexico. As a national sport rooted in the everyday demands of ranching, the crafts and techniques of charrería were adopted and modified by American settlers in the 19th century. They in turn developed their own rodeo tradition. This elaborate saddle with embossed silver medallions was given to General Philip Sheridan by a Mexican friend in 1866. In that year, General Sheridan armed Mexican nationalists led by Benito Juárez, and headed a 50,000-man army along the U.S.-Mexico border in order to pressure France to end its occupation of Mexico.

This spur, worn over a riding boot, was made in Mexico in the mid-1800s. Rubbed against the animal's side, spurs are one of the instruments that riders use to direct horses. The spikes on this spur are set on a small wheel called a rowel, making this a rowel spur. Horses and good riding equipment, such as spurs, saddles, stirrups, and leather coverings, played a fundamental role in the European conquest, exploration, and settlement of wide areas of North America. Much of the technique and craftsmanship of riding culture that was found in the American West among both Native Americans and later U.S. settlers was introduced by the Spanish in Mexico within the first century of colonization (1500s). During this period, huge herds of cattle and sheep (both newly introduced species, like horses) flooded the dry grasslands of northern Mexico and were tended by men who would later be called vaqueros—cowboys. The ranching culture that they developed, as well as the ecological destruction that grazing produced, stretched from Texas to California. This economy of raising livestock on the open range was embraced by settlers coming overland from the American East along routes like the Santa Fe, Old Spanish, and Gila trails. To this day, ranching remains a vital economic and cultural force in both the American West and northern Mexico.

This aquatint, titled Market Plaza by Geoge O. "Pop" Hart, was printed about 1925, a period of peak migration for workers streaming to the United States seeking opportunity in the United States and escape from the chaos of the Mexican Revolution (1910 1921). Many of the married men settled in the United States and brought their wives and families—from 1900 to 1932, the Mexican-born population of the United States grew from 103,000 to over 1,400,000. Other Mexican workers returned to their homes in Jalisco, Guanajuato, or Michoacán, and came north periodically in search of seasonal or temporary work. Replacing recently banned workers from Asia, these men provided cheap labor for the newly irrigated cotton fields of Texas and Arizona, the copper mines of Utah, the fruit processing plants of California, and the railroads that connected all points in between. An abundance of factory jobs also increasingly attracted Mexican migrants to cities like Chicago and Milwaukee. But many of these hard-earned economic opportunities in the United States came to an end during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mexican workers in areas like California had to compete with economic refugees from across the country. Many were targets of discrimination and anti-immigrant violence. Thousands of American citizens were among the 500,000 men, women, and children forcibly and suddenly moved to Mexico on buses and trains from Texas and California during the Great Depression. This print is one of a series of images created by American artists traveling in Mexico.

With the lucrative growth of tourism in 20th century, stereotypical and processed images of Mexico have often been marketed to the American imagination. In them, "South of the Border" becomes a sunny pre-modern place of vacations, trinkets, and convenient lawlessness. But contrasting and complex images of Mexico have pervaded the American imagination since well before the Civil War. Mexico, itself defined by cultural and racial exchange, has historically represented a starkly different social order to most Americans. A country with cheap land and labor and bountiful mineral and agricultural resources offered economic opportunities to many Americans, from white financiers and mercenaries to black oil workers and baseball players. Mexico was also a refuge for many American artists, of Mexican descent or otherwise, who imagined Mexico in different ways. Some artists sought inspiration from its ancient history, and others came looking for a pristine and exotic landscape. This lithograph, titled Mariposas at Patyenaro was drawn by Alan Crane in 1943. It depicts the picturesque, butterfly-shaped nets of Mexican fisherman paddling their canoes on a lake. Alan Horton Crane (1901–1969) was a Brooklyn-born illustrator best known for his landscapes and genre scenes of life in Mexico and New England. Similar prints by Crane showing scenes of idyllic Mexico are housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.

Though anchored in local Roman Catholic traditions, many of the religious beliefs and symbols of Mexican Americans have roots in indigenous notions about the soul and our universe. Between October 31st and November 2nd, Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated with family, decorating home altars and visiting the graves of loved ones. A holiday with much regional and individual variation, it is traditionally an occasion to commemorate parents and grandparents with altars of marigolds, candles, alcohol, skeleton-shaped sweets, and other foods and personal objects favored by the dearly departed. Day of the Dead celebrations were reinvented across many Mexican American communities beginning in the 1970s, as the Chicano movement promoted and readapted Mexican cultural practices. Many artists since then have seized on the visual power of the altar as a conduit for personal and public memory. In the United States, Day of the Dead altars can be found interrogating life and critiquing politics in public places. Contemporary Day of the Dead celebrations have memorialized those who have died from AIDS, gang violence, the civil wars in Central America, and crossing the border. This lithograph, titled Night of the Dead, was originally drawn in ink by Alan Crane in 1958. Alan Horton Crane (1901–1969) was a Brooklyn-born illustrator best known for his landscapes and genre scenes of life in Mexico and New England. This image is part of a series of prints by Alan Crane housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History.

This scene of the Toluca market was depicted by Alan Crane in 1946. Housed in the Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History, it is one of a series of lithographs of Mexican landscapes and genre scenes he printed during the 1940s. The growth of the tourist industry, rebounding after WWII, created a market for images of an idyllic Mexico—peaceful, scenic, and premodern. The elements of everyday life shown here—the densely packed stands of the ceramics vendors, the pulquería (a cantina that serves pulque, the fermented juice of the maguey plant), and the traditional dress of the marketeers—were as foreign to the urbanized Mexican American youth in Los Angeles, El Paso, and San Antonio as they were to American tourists seeking a memento of "Old Mexico." The generations of youths who grew up in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s were fundamental in negotiating the language, aesthetics, and political vision that would constitute the contemporary culture of Mexican Americans. These young men and women, many of whom were war veterans as well as industrial and agricultural workers, created empowering images of Mexican Americans as they defined new roles for themselves as activists during the civil rights struggles of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

La Malinche, the title of this lithograph, was the indigenous woman who translated for Cortés between Maya, Náhuatl, and Spanish during his first years in Mexico. Considered either as a traitor or a founding mother by some Mexicans, La Malinche was Cortés's lover and the mother of his favorite son Martín. She and Moctezuma are also central figures in the Matachines dances that are performed in Mexico and New Mexico. Originally commemorating the expulsion of the Moors from southern Spain in 1492, the dance was brought to Mexico where it was treated as a means for Christianizing native peoples. The historical figure of La Malinche, known in Spanish by the name Doña Marina, is also credited for playing an almost miraculous role in the early evangelization of central Mexico. This print, made by Jean Charlot in the 1933, shows a young girl in the role of La Malinche, holding a rattle or toy in one hand, and a sword in the other. Jean Charlot, a French-born artist, lived and studied in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. He depicted stylized scenes from the daily life of Mexican workers, particularly indigenous women.

The Graphic Arts Collection of the National Museum of American History houses an extensive series of prints by archeologist and artist Jean Charlot (1898–1979), and prominent Los Angeles printer Lynton Kistler (1897–1993). Charlot, the French-born artist of this print, spent his early career during the 1920s in Mexico City. As an assistant to the socialist painter Diego Rivera, he studied muralism, a Mexican artistic movement that was revived throughout Latino communities in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. This lithograph, titled Work and Rest contrasts the labor of an indigenous woman, grinding corn on a metate, with the slumber of her baby. Printed by Lynton Kistler in Los Angeles in 1956, it presents an image of a Mexican woman living outside the industrial age. This notion of "Old Mexico" unblemished by modernity appealed to many artists concerned in the early 20th century with the mechanization and materialism of American culture. It was also a vision that was packaged as an exotic getaway for many American tourists. It is worth contrasting the quaint appeal of an indigenous woman laboring over her tortillas with the actual industrialization of the tortilla industry. By 1956, this woman would likely have bought her tortillas in small stacks from the local tortillería, saving about six hours of processing, grinding, and cooking tortilla flour.